


A Boy Without Freckles Is Like a Sky Without Stars

by GoldenTruth813



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Freckles, Getting Together, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Harry Potter Next Generation, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Switching, M/M, POV James Sirius Potter, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 02:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14275428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: James loves his freckles, he's just not so sure about everyone else.





	A Boy Without Freckles Is Like a Sky Without Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PotterArt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotterArt/gifts).



> Thank you aibidil for the quick beta! <3 
> 
> This is for potter-art who is my James S. freckle worshiping buddy. ILU Gesa!

James has freckles  _ everywhere _ . 

Considerably more than his mum and less than some of his uncles, yet always enough that no one lets him forget they’re there. Especially not since Albus and Lily don’t have any. 

When James was seven years old a few of the kids at the local primary tried to tease him about them, asking if he was hit with a curse or just born that ugly and splotchy. James had cursed them in the only way he knew how, with words nasty enough he earned a strong telling off by his mum for foul language, followed by a lesson on how to cast a Bat-Bogey Hex.

He distinctly remembers Marcus O’Leary telling the other boys in the Gryffindor dorm right after Sorting that they could play connect the dots on James’s face with a quill when he fell asleep. The Bat-Bogey Hex he sent him shut him up pretty quick.

At thirteen years old, during the team’s first game against Slytherin that year, Jacqueline Flint—the other team’s fifth-year Seeker—had yelled, _ “Hey Potter, I named my crup after you! Spot!” _ Her laughter rang in James’s ear as the whistle blew. James had shown her what was what by catching the Snitch in record time, though—beating Slytherin 250 points to 20 in the first ten minutes—winking at her as his fingers closed around its fluttering wings.

The joke was on all of them, though, because James had always liked his freckles; liked that he looked a bit like his mum and a bit like his dad but different enough from them both that he always felt like  _ just  _ James.

He remembers summers spent laying in the garden, his parents holding hands and Albus and Lily playing Exploding Snap under the the shade of the tree in the corner while James watched the clouds go by and dreamed of flying, absorbing every ray of sunshine when it happened to grace the abysmal English sky. That summer, just before he turned sixteen, he’d spent more time outside than in. When he would walk into the house after hours outside with twice as many freckles as before he'd gone out, his dad would laugh good naturedly, teasing him that he’d gone outside a Potter and come back a Weasley. 

It never mattered what anyone said, though, because when James looked in the mirror he liked what he saw.

He wore his freckles like a badge of honor. 

But all the same, there was still something James couldn’t seem to shake—the knowledge that most people didn’t see freckles the way he did, didn’t find them unique or attractive. 

Burned into his brain was the day Ernie Finch-Fletchley, the first boy he’d given a blow job to, had asked before getting ready to go down on his knees for James in reciprocation,  _ “You don’t have freckles  _ everywhere _ do you? _ ” as if it might be a problem if he did. James had told him in no uncertain terms that he most definitely  _ did _ have them everywhere and that Ernie had a better chance of earning an Order of Merlin than he now had of seeing those freckles for himself. James then told him exactly where he could shove his broom during the next Quidditch match.

After that, James found himself looking for any excuse to show off his freckles. Wearing vests in the Gryffindor common room on weekends to show off the freckles atop the curve of his shoulders even when it was too cold to do it. Or using any excuse to toss his shirt to the ground during Quidditch practice and show off the freckles that dotted his stomach or spread across his shoulders, as delicate as wings.

After James left school, it had become a habit he could not break even if he wanted to. Showing off his freckles was no longer an act of defiance but an act of acceptance.

All the same, there is a part of James—some small part he keeps hidden—that wonders if anyone would love those parts of James as much as he does. Loving yourself is great, but being loved by someone else is pretty spectacular too. Or so James thinks. He’s never been in love, unless you count Teddy, but James isn’t sure that counts because he’s loved Teddy since before he knew what love was. It hasn’t always been the same kind of love, the all-consuming kind that makes him feel like he’s burning, that makes him want to hold Teddy’s hand as much as he wants to hold Teddy’s cock. But either way he’s pretty sure that like the love of his freckles, this love will be one-sided.

Which is why it comes as such a surprise when, one month after he moves into the spare room in Teddy’s flat, Teddy presses him back against the kitchen wall and kisses him breathless. “Wanted to do that for longer than you could imagine,” Teddy whispers and before James can answer, Teddy kisses him again. James wonders if it is just a coincidence that Teddy’s hands won’t leave the smattering of freckles above his right hip bone that look a bit like a star. 

Teddy spends so long kissing the freckles on James’s back he’s nearly crying, has never been touched like  _ that  _ before. Teddy moves on down his spine, over the curve of his arse and down the expanse of his thighs, even finding the lone freckle on his ankle, his strong hands seemingly trying to map every single freckle on James’s body before he follows that same path with his mouth. 

“Fuck, it’s not astronomy class. I’m not a constellation,” James laughs, rolling over onto his back to look at Teddy. It was too much, and the overwhelming reality of what he felt had crashed into James and he’d had to make a joke in a futile attempt to slow the confusing urge he felt to shove his face into Teddy’s neck, to wrap his arms around him and never let go.  

Teddy laughs at him fondly, the wanker—he has an intoxicating laugh—before pinning James’s wrists back above his head and rolling his hips down.

“Maybe I want to learn every single freckle on your body.” James isn’t sure if that was a challenge or a promise. 

“Might take a long time,” James groans, and fuck, he’d definitely meant for that to sound playful, but somewhere between the moan Teddy pulls from his lips as he continues to frot against him and the way Teddy’s thumb is stroking the three freckles on the inside of James's left wrist, the words come out sounding hopeful. 

James was slowly losing his mind. Or his heart. Maybe both. 

Teddy’s hips still at his words, his hands moving from James’s wrists to his face. Teddy cups his cheek in one hand, the tips of his finger’s tickling the shell of James’s ear and the fingers in his other hand dancing across the freckles that cascade across James’s cheek and over the bridge of his nose.

“Might take forever,” James gasps as Teddy begins moving his hips again.

The dimple in Teddy’s cheek is visible from his soft smile, the tips of his hair falling into his eyes and turning an unfamiliar shade of purple. “Yeah, it just might.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://goldentruth813.tumblr.com/) <3


End file.
